Piers Akerman – Tuesday,January 29,2013 (1:06pm)

Having given the finger to female Asian doctors, Tim Mathieson, the First Bloke, has backed away from his clumsy joke.

Actually, it was an old joke, so old it had whiskers, and it must have done the rounds of every doctor’s waiting rooms and every operating theatre – because such jokes do.

Mathieson has now apologised for his joke, saying it was in poor taste.

That was in hind sight (boom boom, pun intended).

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has also said that her feller is a great advocate for men’s health and that the joke was in poor taste and that now he has apologised, that should be it.

Unfortunately, Gillard, and more latterly, her Attorney General Nicola Roxon, set the bar on offensive commentary.

First there was Gillard’s shrill attack on Opposition leader Tony Abbott in which she infamously and totally irrationally and falsely branded him a misogynist and more recently there has been Roxon’s attempt to muzzle critics with her over-the-top attack on speech which the politically correct may find offensive.

As we have not yet heard from Finance Minister Penny Wong about Mathieson’s remark, we do not know how the only Asian member of the dysfunctional government feels about the quip but it could certainly have been found to be racist.

It was probably also misogynistic, too.

It goes without saying that most news readers are trying to play down the one-liner – but everyone knows that the howls would still be ringing if an Opposition member had uttered it.

What this underscores is the absolute hypocrisy that Labor and its spin doctors wallow in.

I doubt whether anyone was really offended, and if they were, I feel sorry for them.

Any bloke who has a digital examination would see the funny side of the remark and I doubt whether it will have any effect either way on the number of men who seek prostate checks.

Tim, I am on your side, but you shouldn’t have apologised. You should have had guts to tell your politically correct critics to get a life.

Unfortunately, that was not an option for you because of the strife your de facto has caused with her trumped-up claims of offense over every little remark made by those to whom she is politically opposed.

She has dug a big hole and you have fallen into it.

Now you look like a complete goose.

The politically correct have to give you the finger or they will appear as hypocritical as the ALP and its legion of spin doctors.

Tim Blair – Tuesday,January 29,2013 (4:58am)

Currently, the Coalition is favourite in 91 seats and the ALP in 54. Independent Andrew Wilkie and Katter’s Australia Party founder Bob Katter are also favourites in their respective seats, whilethe Greens have no favourites and three electorates – Capricornia (QLD), Hindmarsh (WA) and Werriwa (NSW) – are too close to call.

In the overall election winner market, Tony Abbott’s Coalition are the $1.35 favourites, with Labor the $3.30 outsiders. Three in every four bets taken since betting opened after the 2010 federal election has been for the Coalition.

It is marvellous that the Australian Defence Force is able to help the emergency services deal with the Queensland floods - and this will be one of the only purposes it is good for on the federal government’s current trajectory…

It’s just that it is useless in a traditional large-scale war…

China has increased its defence budget faster than any nation in Asia over the past decade. Its military outlays grew at an 11-year compounded annual growth rate of 13.4 per cent, according to a CSIS study. At this rate, it quadruples in a dozen years and will eclipse the US defence budget in 25 years…

Australia under Kevin Rudd was hedging against the risk that a rising China could prove to be an aggressive rising power… Australia would be able to defend its northern approaches and contribute to the defence of its allies in the event that the worst came to pass.

But with the passing of Rudd went the passing of this plan. The former defence official and founder of the Kokoda Foundation, Ross Babbage, sums up the Gillard government’s dramatic revision of the 2009 policy:

“The Australian defence budget was cut by almost 5 per cent in 2010-11 and then in last year’s budget it was cut again by 10.47 per cent. This reduced our defence spending to 1.56 per cent of GDP, the lowest it has been since 1938. Further cuts can be expected in this year’s white paper.”

As a backbencher last June, Mr McClelland referred to Ms Gillard’s involvement in providing advice on the establishment of a contentious AWU fund in Parliament.

While speaking on a bill to crack down on fraud by union officials, he said: “I never want to see a dollar that a worker gives a union used for any purpose other than the proper purposes of representing that union member’s best interests.

“Indeed, I know the Prime Minister is quite familiar with this area of the law; as lawyers in the mid-1990s, we were involved in a matter representing opposing clients.”

Shadow attorney-general George Brandis said the joke, while inappropriate, highlighted the problem with Labor’s “nanny state” laws, which would allow aggrieved parties to sue over offensive comments.

“I think Tim Mathieson is lucky he didn’t tell this joke after the Nicola Roxon anti-discrimination bill became law, because if he did he’d probably have been carted away to the re-education camp by the thought police,” Senator Brandis told Sky News.

UPDATE

A very big call indeed from Channel 10 political reporter Stephen Spencer, a former Labor staffer:

Hmm. Let’s imagine:

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has told men to “look for a small, Asian, female doctor” to do their prostate checks.

Unfortunately, Gillard, and more latterly, her Attorney General Nicola Roxon, set the bar on offensive commentary.

First there was Gillard’s shrill attack on Opposition leader Tony Abbott in which she infamously and totally irrationally and falsely branded him a misogynist and more recently there has been Roxon’s attempt to muzzle critics with her over-the-top attack on speech which the politically correct may find offensive…

What this underscores is the absolute hypocrisy that Labor and its spin doctors wallow in…

Tim, I am on your side, but you shouldn’t have apologised. You should have had guts to tell your politically correct critics to get a life.

Unfortunately, that was not an option for you because of the strife your de facto has caused with her trumped-up claims of offense over every little remark made by those to whom she is politically opposed.

Perhaps Mr Mathieson, who is known to be a good bloke and was making an important point about men’s health, was really making a protest statement about the government’s crazy pursuit of new anti-discrimination laws....

At very best the draft bill seeks to formalise the role of government as the ultimate purveyor of good manners…

What we are left with is the awful conclusion that this bill is nothing more than ideology gone mad; that the Left in this country has fought all the really big battles and all that remains available to it is symbolism wrapped in sophistry.

Supporters of the bill (there are a few) stick doggedly to the government line that this is about fairness and equity. It is nothing of the sort. It will merely empower those with the wherewithal to commence legal proceedings when they feel the vaguest slight…

It needs to go because at its heart Ms Roxon et al want to create an Australia where we would be required to think twice and then think again before we utter a comment, sing a song or crack a gag.

The ECG/JWS poll shows that Tony Abbott is on track to win ten seats in News South Wales alone, enough to see him form an absolute majority in the House of Representatives. And this number does not include the seats held by the two independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, which were not included in the research because they were not deemed to have met the criteria of six-percent-or-less. However, the Coalition anticipates it can win both…

Some of these losses will be offset by gains in Queensland, with the ALP set to pick up as many as six seats ... In Victoria, there is a 4.1 percent swing away from the government in the 10 marginals polled. If this were replicated at the next election it would result in a three-seat loss for the government. In WA, Labor would avoid losing any seats…

In the smaller States and Territories, the swing away from the government was signi?cant although sample sizes were not sufficient to draw too many conclusions in those jurisdictions.

SARA EVERINGHAM: The backlash from the Prime Minister’s captain’s pick of Nova Peris is not over.

Three Indigenous ALP members are running a ballot against Nova Peris in protest against the pre-selection being taken out of the hands of the party rank and file.

Marion Scrymgour, a former deputy chief minister, is one of those candidates. She says local branch members are also asking whether territory Labor’s most senior federal representative, the Federal Minister Warren Snowdon, supports the decision to parachute in a candidate.

MARION SCRYMGOUR: There are many members of the Labor Party in the Northern Territory who would like to know you just what his role was in all of this. You can’t be a minister in the Federal Government and not know what was going down.

SARA EVERINGHAM: Last night in Darwin, Warren Snowdon was asked whether he supports the Prime Minister’s decision to intervene in the Northern Territory Senate pre-selection, and whether he was consulted.

WARREN SNOWDON: I’m not making any comment on matters to do with the Labor Party tonight....

REPORTER: But you’re the most senior member of the Northern Territory Labor Party.

WARREN SNOWDON: I’ve told you - what I’ve said is what I’ve said.

REPORTER: When were you consulted about the decision…?

WARREN SNOWDON: I wasn’t.... There is a party process and maybe not the one that people in the Northern Territory think is appropriate and I understand the concerns that have been expressed very strongly...

Given that we know that the warming so far has increased global vegetation cover, increased precipitation, lengthened growing seasons, cause minimal ecological change and had no impact on extreme weather events, I need persuading that future warming will be fast enough and large enough to do net harm rather than net good....

So I cannot see why this relatively poor generation should bear the cost of damage that will not become apparent until the time of a far richer future generation, any more than people in 1900 should have borne sacrifices to make people today slightly richer....

Finally, you might make the argument that even a very small probability of a very large and dangerous change in the climate justifies drastic action. But I would reply that a very small probability of a very large and dangerous effect from the adoption of large-scale renewable energy, reduced economic growth through carbon taxes or geo-engineering also justifies extreme caution. Pascal’s wager cuts both ways.

At the moment, it seems highly likely that the cure is worse than disease. We are taking chemotherapy for a cold.

UPDATE

So how much cooler has the world become, thanks to this sacrifice?

Peak retail industry body the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) today supported the Australian Industry Group’s (Ai Group) findings that surveyed business’ costs had increased by 14.5 percent on average as a direct result of the carbon tax.

ARA Executive Director Russell Zimmerman said it supported ARA data from a survey* conducted in late 2012 showing 80 percent of retailers felt their business had been negatively impacted since the introduction of the carbon tax in July 2012.

What’s been the gain from this pain?

(No link to press release.)

UPDATE

Meanwhile, the world seems to be flourishing under global warming. Never have we grown such crops:

All organisations employing more than 100 employees have to self-identify to the WGEA and must report annually on their workplace program for women… In this case, non-compliant organisations are not eligible for commonwealth contracts for the procurement of goods and services....The agency offers employers advice and assistance if they fail to meet minimum standards with “a view to improving the employers’ performance”.

The mind boggles—WGEA staff helping private sector companies to improve their performance in relation to a government-mandated standard that bears no relation to commercial realities… Having commercially inexperienced bureaucrats make judgments about the written material companies are compelled to produce would almost certainly fail any sensible cost-benefit test.

My advice to the Coalition is to promise to abolish the WGEA. It is a bad and costly joke and we would be better off without it.

As for gender equality, the Agency fails in its own mission. Here is a time series of employees for the Agency and its predecessor, the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency. The Workplace Gender Equality Agency: Do what we say, not what we do.

Figures released on Monday show only 72,400 premises had been passed by the end of December after 18 months of fibre rollout. In order to meet its own targets, NBN Co will need to pass 268,000 premises in the next five months.

And note that the NBN targets have been made rubbery, requiring only that a cable be laid near a house, and not to it:

NBN Co counts as ‘’passed’’ premises where cable has been laid in the street but a house is yet to be connected.

UPDATE

We’re paying billions just for cables in the ground?

The Opposition’s Malcolm Turnbull details the many signs of a scheme in trouble, and adds that the real metric - paying customers - is also below target::

I have just been in contact with relatives in Queensland for the first time since the present disaster occurred. They were on the NBN and it was the first thing to fail during the flooding. It still has not been restored but mobile net is back on line.

I am beginning to question the value of fiber optic to the home as opposed to fiber to node.

The application for special leave to appeal to the High Court has been lodged by solicitors acting for William David Bugmy, from Wilcannia in far western NSW, a chronic alcoholic who has a mental illness and has been almost continually incarcerated since he was 13 years old.

Bugmy was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison for grievous bodily harm, with a non-parole period of five years, last October when the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal increased a previous six-year term of imprisonment handed down by the NSW District Court.

The then 29-year-old had assaulted a prison guard by pelting him with pool balls. The guard was hit in the left eye, suffering retinal detachment, eye socket fractures and permanent loss of vision....

Bugmy’s solicitors, the Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT, are asking the High Court to follow the Canadian Supreme Court judgment of R v Ipeelee, which ruled that real equality under the law cannot be achieved unless courts accept that historical, social and economic deprivation can affect moral culpability.

“The overrepresentation of the indigenous population in custodial settings both nationally and in NSW . . . is far worse than the figures examined in those (Canadian) cases,” Bugmy’s lawyers said in their summary of argument filed in the High Court last week.

It is not hard to see how such arguments swiftly degenerate into excuses. Even a licence.

And if “overrepresentation in jail” becomes a factor in sentencing, we’re down to racial quotas - and hence different standards of justice for different “races”.

“Equality of sentencing” between the “races” becomes inequality of sentencing between individuals, with an offender from one “overrepresented” race becoming less likely to be jailed than a similar offender from an “underrepresented” one.

Note also the implied assumption that colonisation was a disaster for Aborigines today. Never mind how many Aborigines live lives richer, freer, safer, healthier and fuller of possibilities than any that Aboriginal society could have provided. Never mind that colonisation for almost all brought not only their “oppressors” but some of their own ancestors.

It is now all the more critical that we should be much more free than the law permits to discuss racial identity. The nature of egalitarian Australia is being changed for the dramatic worse, and we should be freer to resist.

ABORIGINAL people suffer violence more than other Australians. This was so in pre-contact times, as it is today.

It is important to acknowledge this link between today’s Aboriginal violence and a violent, pre-contact tradition because until policymakers are honest in their assessment of the causes, Aboriginal people can never be liberated from violence. The nation needs to understand that to liberate Aboriginal people from violence, deep cultural change is necessary, away from traditional norms and practices of violence. Such fundamental change is unlikely to occur in separate, self-determined communities which are premised on maintaining traditional culture.

Q: Why did you write this book? It would seem to fall into the “brave” category in that merely raising the topic of Indigenous violence will earn you a long list of ardent enemies.A: My profession entails a responsibility to uphold truth, despite my primary political orientation, and any personal discomfort and attack that may follow. I see little point in post-graduate studies specialising in political science at one of Australia’s finest universities if I do not hold to this principle.

I am committed to the liberal-democratic principles of universal individual human rights and non-relativism regarding violence. My left-leaning feminism increases my outrage against the oppressions endured by remote Aboriginal women. Through my research, I came to understand that Aboriginal self-determination is a key causal factor in the persistent, high levels of violence against Aboriginal women.

I also saw the necessity for this book for the following reasons. There is a persistent non liberal-democratic, cultural relativist approach among white professionals regarding Aboriginal violence. There remains a denial of the violence in pre-contact Australia, despite scholarly works detailing this violence. There is an evasion of the implications that traditional violence has for self-determination policies. Above all, I wrote this book as my contribution towards a less violent future for Aboriginal Australians…

Q: One need not venture too far off the beaten track to witness the consequence of violence in Indigenous life. How could so many people professing their concern for Aboriginal betterment have remained so blind for so long?A: A key reason is the guilt white Australians carry for the injustices and losses Aboriginal people suffered under white colonisation. For many caring, well-educated white Australians, the primary task is to address these past colonial wrongs. For them, cultural respect, cultural rights, cultural relativism even for violence, “never criticise”, and a sense of “otherness” more than our shared humanity, are uppermost. These inhibit perception that intra-community violence needs mainstream attention. They blunt national outrage and the sense that it is even our concern… As a nation, we are outraged and saddened by the horrific rape and murder of the young Indian woman in New Delhi. We are a caring people, but we are largely mute about the many horrific instances of rape, assault and murder of remote Aboriginal women.

Aboriginal women in particular will hope that High Court hears such arguments, too.

The Gillard Government has hit Australia with a carbon tax of $23 a tonne. It predicts that when we switch to international carbon trading in 2015/16, the world price for carbon credits will be $29 a tonne.

That now seems highly unlikely, given the collapse of the two main carbon trading markets:

Last week, the price of an EU carbon allowance briefly tumbled to a record low of €2.81 a tonne [$3.64], heaping embarrassment on the EU’s flagship policy to combat global warming....

The price collapse is only the latest indignity the carbon market has suffered during its eight-year history – from value added tax frauds to cyber-thefts of allowances. Yet moribund prices may be the most worrying because they call into question the workings of a market designed to promote clean technology investment by putting a price on carbon and forcing companies to buy allowances to offset their pollution.

What the architects failed to anticipate was an economic crisis that has restrained industrial activity, and thus reduced the need for allowances…

Some wonder, therefore, if the EU carbon market will follow the path of its smaller cousin, the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism offset carbon market.

This scheme promised to enable companies, including those covered by the EU emissions trading system, to offset their carbon emissions with credits generated from clean energy projects in developing markets. But the weakness of the EU market – and limits on the amount and type of CDM credits allowed in it – has led to the collapse of CDM credit prices to less than €0.50, sinking much of the industry of project developers, analysts and assessors that grew up to support it.

This confronts the Gillard Government with a financial and political disaster.

It is giving many Australians compensation to match a carbon price of $23 - and rising as the carbon tax increases. That compensation is paid for by the carbon tax. But if the tax does not match the compensation, a great financial crater opens under the Government’s feet - unless it slashes the handouts:

But even if the carbon price falls to only $10, and then rises after that by 4 per cent in real terms annually, the commonwealth’s fiscal position during the period from 2015-16 to 2019-20 worsens by $25 billion. To leave budget outcomes unchanged, the government therefore needs an additional $25bn in revenues, spending cuts or both. Where are those savings, Mr Swan?

But the Treasurer isn’t the only minister swinging in the breeze. After all, Climate Change Minister Greg Combet repeatedly stressed that the entire purpose of the carbon scheme was to provide a “predictable, long-term price signal” whose steady rise investors in renewables and other low-emissions technologies could rely on.

Moreover, the floor price was essential to achieving that goal, as it ensures “stability and predictability” and avoids “the risk of sharp downward movements in the carbon price, which could undermine long-term investment in clean technologies”. Where is that predictability now, given the wild gyrations that characterise European carbon prices?

Researchers from University of Michigan and Iowa State assessed levels of prejudice against Arabs by those participants that played a terrorism-themed video game versus a golf game.

The results indicate that because of the absence of personal contact, society is more likely to draw stereotypical traits from the media, which rarely depicts Arabs in a positive light.

So what stereotypes do video games promote when played by Arabs?

PS: Which group of people should those interested in terrorism regard instead as the source of the greatest threat?

Lutherans? Buddhists? South Americans? The Dutch?

===
ACT
===Do you want the ones I have licked or those who have not licked? Joke, I licked them all.
===We all have to do our bit for the environment .. fish gotta swim .. bird gotta fly .. but they don't last long if they try
===You cannot have faith and no action to back it up. Faith without action is dead. Think about Abraham. He had faith and He showed his faith when he was willing to sacrifice his only son to God. So wherever your faith level is always make sure it is backed up with action.
===If you cut a loaf of bread in half you can make your own BEATS headphones #dyi #beats #kitchenninja #kitchenwhiz #headphones #channel9
===
===
For TMN
===It was terrific to be joined by my daughter Frances today for a tour of the wonderful facilities at The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.
===
With Edu-Kingdom
===
===Moon over the Bay
===
===Dr. Phil will be the first to interview the man behind the Manti Te'o Girlfriend Hoax in a two-part, exclusive interview this Thursday & Friday. Stay tuned for more info: http://bitly.com/DRPTuiasosopo
===Next Stop Hollywood continues TONIGHT at 9.30pm
===Voting for Obama was asking to be lied to.
===The moment you say, “Lord, I cannot, but You can. Today, I rest in Your unmerited favor,” whatever demand that is upon you disappears into the vast ocean of His abundant supply.
===
===Freedom Quote of the Week, from Milton Friedman:

"The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.”
===

Hi everyone! Here's the MichelleMalkin.com newsletter for January 28th. Enjoy!

Translate

Subscribe To

Followers

Translator

About Me

I'm author of History in a Year by the Conservative Voice aka History of the World in a Year by the Conservative Voice.

I'm the Conservative Voice.

I'm looking to make contact with those who might use my skill.

I have an m-audio mobile pre amp fed by the audiotechnica 2041sp condensor mic pack. Prior to 15/4/06, I'd used a Shure sm-58 that required a nuclear blast to register a sound or the internal mic of my aged imac, which has a penchance to recording my breathing. I also used a Griffin itrip, until the community convinced me it was not hiding my talent as well as the other mics.

I am a Writer and an occasional Math Teacher (Sir, what's the occasion?). I like to sing, having no instrumental talent (cannot even clap in time, and yes, I'm aware singing badly IS obnoxious).

I have performed the finale to Les Miserables before an audience of 500. I have also sung before a similar audience (students, parents) renditions of 'I Will' (Beatles), 'Mr Cairo' (Jon Vangelis) and 'I am Australian' (Seekers). Now I seek another profession because the audience hates me ..